


How It Started

by HugeAlienPie



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Childhood Friends, Developing Friendships, Gen, Panic Attacks, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-08
Updated: 2016-07-08
Packaged: 2018-07-22 09:22:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7429221
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HugeAlienPie/pseuds/HugeAlienPie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It started on a playground, or at a grave, or in a hallway, or against a rock. The friendship of Scott McCall and Stiles Stilinski, in bumps and jolts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	How It Started

**Author's Note:**

> So I said to [the_wordbutler](http://archiveofourown.org/users/the_wordbutler): Tyler Posey and Dylan O'Brien talk about Scott and Stiles having been friends forever. Like, met-on-the-playground-at-age-two forever. But the other day I remembered this exchange in 'Lunatic' (s01e08):
>
>> SCOTT: I was having an asthma attack?  
> STILES: No, you were having a panic attack. But thinking you were having an asthma attack actually stopped the panic attack. Irony.  
> SCOTT: How did you know to do that?  
> STILES: I used to get them after my mom died. Not fun, huh? 
> 
> Here's what I'm thinking: if Scott and Stiles had been friends since sandbox days, Scott would _know_ this.
> 
> This story is the result of that thought process.
> 
> **Trigger Warning:** contains reference to the decline and death of Claudia Stilinski, and to a panic attack. Neither of these things are described in detail.

Stiles hung upside-down by his knees from the monkey bars. Gravity pulled some at his red t-shirt, but he didn't bother pulling it down. Jackson wouldn't be looking anyway, and Danny and Lydia had both yet to fall madly for his charms. That was okay, though; he was, after all, only in the first year of his five-year plan to make either (or both) of them fall in love with him.

Jackson walked past and shoved him, not hard enough to dislodge him. Stiles just clenched his knees tighter around the metal until he stopped swaying and then flashed Jackson his most obnoxious smile. Jackson sneered back, and Stiles grinned more genuinely.

Jackson leaned against the monkey bars next to Stiles' head. "Thank _God_ it's Friday," he said with the air of someone repeating something he'd heard the adults around him say a lot.

Stiles shrugged. Neither of his parents had normal work weeks, and he liked school; in his book, weekends weren't necessarily better. In fact, as far as he was concerned, they were worse, because Danny, Jackson, and Lydia's parents did have normal Monday through Friday jobs and took their families on a lot of weekend trips, depriving Stiles of his best friends, especially during the summer, which was prime friend time.

Stiles didn't like to think about how fast summer was coming, so he said, "Funny thing happened yesterday. Well, funny things happen every day, but this was extra funny. My mom thought it was Tuesday. Not like she just forgot for a minute that it was really Thursday. She really, really _believed_ that it was Tuesday. I kept telling her it was Thursday, but she didn't believe me. Got kind of upset, actually." He grinned. "It was great. Mom doesn't get upset very often, but she sure was upset about that."

That was how it started.

*

Scott's mom moved them to Beacon Hills at the beginning of fourth grade. He hated it. He didn't know anyone. He'd had friends in San Francisco—a lot of friends—and there'd always been something to do. Beacon Hills was a small, sleepy town, and the kids here already had friends and weren't interested in making room in their circles for big city newcomers. That one girl—Linda? Lilah?—the redhead who was always with the three boys, had approached him at lunch his first week, but he must have failed whatever test she was giving him, because after that none of them really talked to him. Two of the boys were friendly enough in a casual, off-handed way and would smile when they passed in the hall, but that was it.

A girl named Harley sat with him sometimes on days when the teachers let them take their lunches outside. But she only talked to him if he talked first, and she didn't talk to him or come up to him outside of lunch time.

So Scott had his mom, and monthly letters from his grandmother, and weekly calls with his dad, when Dad remembered and was sober enough to talk. And that was pretty much it.

*

The Martins, Mahealanis, and Whittemores all came to the funeral. Lydia looked as beautiful and confident as always, and Jackson looked as uncomfortable as always, no matter what clothes he was wearing, even though his clothes were always the best. Danny shifted and fidgeted a lot, like he wasn't used to his suit. When Stiles had even a second to think about anything other than the constant chant of _mymomisdeadmymomisdead **mymomisdead**_ that ran over and over in his head like those monks he'd seen in that one documentary on PBS, maybe he would think about whether he'd ever seen Danny in anything besides a T-shirt or polo and jeans or shorts. For now, he was too numb to care. Too wrapped up in his thoughts and his fears.

What if something happened to his dad now, too? Would Dad stay home if Stiles asked him to? Would he stay home forever?

What if Mom wasn't really dead? What if she was stuck in that coffin, in the ground, screaming and clawing at the lid, begging Stiles to let her out? Maybe he should stay here at the graveside for a few days.

What if the doctor had been wrong when she had smiled condescendingly and promised him that what his mom had wasn't catching, and now Stiles was dying, too? Shouldn't they give him an MRI, too, like they had for Mom?

What if he and Dad couldn't survive without Mom to keep order around her and Dad's busy work schedules and Stiles' ADHD, and they died from malnutrition or caught some terrible disease because they forgot to clean the house? Mom made the chore chart every week. Maybe when they got home Stiles should make the next year's worth.

The thoughts darted around his head like hummingbirds, never stopping, never leaving. He needed his dad, but Dad was talking to the priest. Dad looked too tired, anyway, stooped and gray like he'd aged a decade in the past three days.

Stiles looked around for his friends and came face-to-face with—Stiles' brain scrambled but came up blank. He was in their grade, Stiles was pretty sure, but he was new, and Stiles wasn't sure if they had classes together. Stiles wasn't sure what the kid was doing here.

"Uh, hey," the kid said.

"Hello," Stiles said stiffly. "Thank you for coming." He'd been taught to be polite, but polite was all he could manage for strangers right now.

"Uh, sorry about your mom," the kid said.

A hand landed on the other boy's shoulder, and Stiles looked up. Because she was out of her scrubs, it took him a minute to recognize the person attached to the hand as Nurse Melissa. Nurse Melissa was new at the hospital, but she'd been his mom's favorite for a while. She'd had to stop working with Mom at the end because Mom forgot who she was and thought she was having an affair with Dad. Threw a glass of water at her, the last time they'd been in the same room. But she was here now, because apparently Mom had been one of her favorites, too. "Hello, Mścisław," Nurse Melissa said gently. "Do you know Scott?"

Stiles winced. He'd forgotten that Nurse Melissa would mostly know him by his given name, because that was mostly what Mom had called him as she got sicker. "Maybe." He screwed his face up. "I go by Stiles."

Scott squirmed out from under Nurse Melissa's hand—oh, hey, was Scott her kid? He couldn't remember Mom and Nurse Melissa talking about kids, other than about Stiles being at the hospital every waking second he wasn't at school, but he guessed he could kind of see a resemblance.

"Well, Stiles, the nurses all liked your mom a lot," Nurse Melissa said, still so quiet and gentle, not demanding anything of him. "I hope you and your father both know that you can get in touch with us if you need anything."

It was the first time anyone had offered that. Stiles swallowed around the giant lump in his throat. "Thank you," he said, and was kind of surprised to realize he meant it.

Still, he was glad when the next person in the receiving line moved up, clearing their throat and subtly moving Nurse Melissa and her son along. Stiles couldn't think of anything else to he would ever have to say to them.

*

It wasn't the first panic attack Stiles had had since his mom died. It wasn't even the first one he'd had at school.

But it was the first one where he hadn't had enough advance warning to get to a bathroom, or a supply closet, or that clump of trees at the edge of the playground that no one went to because Greenberg had convinced everyone else that it was full of werewolves. This was the first panic attack he'd had in front of a crowd.

"Bilinski! BILINSKI!"

As Stiles slowly came back to himself, counting his breaths and trying to focus on what was actually going on, like Dr. Chen had taught him, rather than what his mind was trying to tell him was going on, he realized that the person crouched in front of him in the hall, staring unblinking and shouting something that was maybe supposed to be his last name, was Mr. Finstock, the new gym teacher. No one had any idea what to make of Mr. Finstock. He was universally agreed to be "pretty weird," but they thought it was kind of cool that he'd replaced the dodgeball unit (an entire unit! of dodgeball!) with lacrosse.

"BILINSKI!" Mr. Finstock shouted. Then he looked at the kids standing near him. "Is he deaf? Can he hear me?"

A person could do a lot of things to help someone who was having a panic attack. Dr. Chen had showed them to Dad after Stiles' first session. Shouting the person's name over and over and asking the crowd if the person was deaf was not one of those things. Stiles rolled his eyes and sat up gingerly. "I can hear you, Mr. Finstock," he said.

Finstock whirled around so fast his whistle went flying and hit him in the face. Stiles tried not to grin. "Jesus, Bilinski, just about gave me a heart attack. Why didn't you _answer_?"

"First off," Stiles said as he used the nearest locker to carefully pull himself to his feet, "I was having a panic attack and not really at my best." He picked up his backpack from where it'd fallen, slung it onto his shoulder, and looked back at Mr. Finstock. "Also, my name is _Sti_ linski."

Mr. Finstock blinked at him. "Stiles... _Sti_ linski." He shook his head. "Jesus, kid. What is wrong with your parents?"

"Well, one of them's _dead_ ," Stiles snapped before he could think about it. Mr. Finstock reared back, and Stiles' automatic reaction was to apologize. Then he stopped and took a deep breath, because Dr. Chen had pointed out that Stiles apologized for a lot of things that weren't his fault, and that it was okay not to apologize for things he didn't have any control over. So he just watched Mr. Finstock and waited.

Mr. Finstock finally tossed his hands in the air like Stiles had done something wrong and then turned to the assembled throng. "Okay, hooligans. Stop standing around gawking. It's not nice, and it weirds me out. Go on! Scram!"

The crowd broke up surprisingly quickly, given that it was made up of overly curious ten-year-olds. Stiles saw an achingly familiar flash of strawberry blond hair and Danny's favorite bright green shirt being carried away with the crowd. "Hey, guys, wait up!" he called. They didn't wait. If anything, it looked like Jackson, at least, sped up at the sound of Stiles' voice.

Stiles' heart plummeted into his shoes. It had also been the first panic attack he'd had in front of his friends.

Dad and Dr. Chen insisted that true friends would continue to like him and support him through this difficult time in his life, even with the panic attacks. But Dad and Dr. Chen were adults. Stiles didn't want to know if Lydia, Danny, and Jackson were true friends, because they were his _only_ friends. If staying friends with them required hiding his panic attacks from them, he'd been prepared to do that for as long as necessary—for the rest of his life, if he'd had to.

Now he'd lost that option, and it looked like things were turning out exactly the way he'd feared.

*

Scott hadn't talked to Stiles since the funeral. Why would he have? Stiles had said literally five words to him at the cemetery, and none in the weeks that had passed since. Stiles wrapped his grief around himself like a shawl, and even his friends didn't seem able to get underneath it. Or maybe they weren't trying.

But when Scott saw Stiles sitting alone outside, sitting against a large rock, banging his head lightly against it and giving himself what looked like the world's least effective pep talk, he had picked up his lunch, walked across the lawn, and sat down next to Stiles before he'd thought it through.

"Hey, Stiles," Scott said.

"Gah!" Stiles replied.

Scott laughed. "Sorry."

Stiles eyed him suspiciously but didn't call him on apologizing while laughing. "Scott, right?"

"Yeah." It hurt a little that Stiles wasn't sure, but in all honesty he wouldn't have any real reason to remember.

"You came to my mom's—" Stiles coughed. "You were at the thing." He made a face. "Sorry. Wasn't at my best that day."

Scott stared at him. "No one thought you would be."

Stiles shrugged, and Scott wondered who'd told him something different. 

Scott tried a different tack. "Were you praying?"

Stiles' eyes widened, and he looked around shiftily. "Uh, when?"

"Just before I came over here?" Stiles was still looking at him like he'd said something really out there, so Scott shrugged and added, "I looked over and you were talking. Wasn't anyone else here, so I wondered if you were talking to God."

Stiles clenched his jaw and stared down at his hands, which were also clenched. "No, I uh—no." He shook his head. "Not praying."

"Okay," Scott said easily. He didn't care, but it was the only thing he'd been able to think of, the only reason a person all by himself might be talking.

"So why'd you come over here, if you thought I was praying?" Stiles asked.

"Well... you looked like you were done?"

Stiles snorted and ripped viciously at his sandwich. "So why are you here? Wanted to stare at the weirdo?"

Scott squinted. "What? No! Who does that?"

Stiles waved his hand around. " _Everyone_."

"No," Scott said fiercely. "No, they _don't_. People aren't staring at you, Stiles. Or if they are, it's because they worry about you."

Stiles snorted but didn't argue again. Did that mean Scott had won the fight? He wasn't sure.

"Look," Scott said, trying to stay calm, even though he felt really super not calm and kind of wanted to shake Stiles a little, "I don't know many people in Beacon Hills yet. I could use a friend. And I thought, maybe, you looked like you could use one, too."

Stiles looked at the wall of the school like he could see through it. On the other side of the wall was the cafeteria, and Stiles was probably looking at about the spot where his friends usually sat. Where he used to sit with them. Stiles sighed and let his head thunk against the rock again. He didn't speak or move, beyond the steady drumming of his fingers against his legs, for so long that Scott thought he wasn't going to say anything. Or maybe he hadn't heard.

Then Stiles rolled his head until he could look at Scott. He smiled hesitantly. "Yeah, okay," he admitted softly. "I could probably use a friend."

That was how it started.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading!
> 
> i do [tumbl](http://hugealienpie.tumblr.com), i do


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